The present invention relates to improvement in or relating to a semiconductor optical switch.
Optical switches for switching or turning ON and OFF an optical path through which an optical signal passes are applied to the switching, exchange or optical integration of a wide band optical transmission line and are indispensable to the sophistication of optical communication systems. Of the optical switches, electronic type ones change the course of light by varying the refractive index of the switching section through the application thereto of an electric field or current, and they are divided into the type that utilizes total reflection of light (a total internal reflection type) and the type that utilizes optical coupling between two optical waveguides (a coupled waveguide type).
However, there has not yet been proposed an optical switch of high speed operation and of low absorption loss of incident light.